


Arsenium

by lmeden



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-07-07
Packaged: 2017-11-09 08:51:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmeden/pseuds/lmeden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now, now,” the man says, and John rounds on him. “I don’t think you need another drink, John Watson.” John jerks back, eyes widening, and slips off the edge of his stool.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arsenium

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SHERLOCKREBANG and inspired by CHRUNCHY_CRUNCK's fabulous art. I really enjoyed this pairing (unusual for me), probably because I have a terrible weakness for evil!John. 
> 
> Art [here](http://chrunchy-crunck.livejournal.com/12030.html).

The flat is dirty as licking a carpark, and completely unaffordable besides. It is so far from John’s price range that he’d consider leaving the city, were it not for that fact that he’s already signed the lease. 

If he’d stuck with uni, pushed through to get his medical degree, or even just enlisted (as he’d thought, for about five minutes, might be an option), he would have enough to afford a better place. But no: he’d dropped out, and there’s no going back now. He sighs and covers his eyes with a hand. 

There is a whistle behind him and Harry tromps in, steps heavy, and then lets the bags she was carrying thump to the floor. 

“Well,” she says, “This is a new low, even for you, John.”

He can’t be blamed, really, for shoving her into the hall and locking the door, leaving her shouting, “See if I ever help you move again!” and pounding on the doorframe. Heart pounding, he leans against the door and lets himself sink to the floor. He knows he should let her back in. But she’s just so _frustrating_. 

Eventually, she leaves. 

He contemplates the dirty windowsills, the grey tracks making their way down the walls, and the disquieting smell of dampness that pervades the place. 

He needs a drink. 

-|-

He has three empty glass in front of him and the bartender is distracted talking to a friend or something at the other end of the bar (fucking unprofessional), so John can’t get another. He settles for glaring. 

“Bad day?” The voice comes from behind him, lilting and somehow contemptuous. 

John turns to find a short man standing beside him, about his age and with close-cropped dark hair, leaning against the bar. He’s wearing a patchwork sweater that is undoubtedly designer, and which clings to his slim waist. He looks vaguely familiar. 

John narrows his eyes at him, taken off guard. “Oh, no,” he drawls. “I’ve had a simply _brilliant_ day.” He whirls. “Bartender!” 

“Now, now,” the man says, and John rounds on him. “I don’t think you need another drink, John Watson.”

John jerks back, eyes widening, and slips off the edge of his stool. He flails and reaches for the bar but the man grabs him first, hauling him up and pulling him close with a deceptive strength. His breath is hot against John’s cheek and John can feel his lips curling up and out into a smile. 

“I have something much better.”

John blinks at him. “Really?”

-|-

Later, he is sprawled on the mattress that John had to drag up the stairs himself because he threw Harry out. The ceiling is turning colors above him, exploding nebulas of nothing, and John turns to the man lying next to him and places a hand on his chest. 

“How do I know you, again?” he asks.

The man laughs, a sharp bark of hilarity that sends a thrill tumbling through John. His high flirts with nervousness. Is this man always like this? 

“ _We_ went to uni together,” the man says. “Don’t you recall?”

John can barely recall his own name at the moment.

“Well…” The word seems long to John, resonating and drawn out. He savors it for a moment. “Did you graduate, then?”

The man watches John with dark eyes full of shadows, and the shadows are spilling over, dripping onto the mattress and swarming towards John, and the man is moving with a sinuous shrug. He shifts close to John and reaches out, slipping a hand under the collar of his shirt and fingering the throb of John’s pulse under his skin. 

“It’s Jim, remember? Jim Moriarty.”

John hums; the name does sound familiar. Jim. Jim from biology courses, Jim from literature requirements, Jim from the studies that John had failed so miserably at. That he’d been so _bored_ by that he’d dropped out.

“Oh,” Jim says, and frowns so comically that John giggles. “Don’t be upset, Johnny-boy, I wasn’t cut out for schooling, either.”

He dips in, then, and kisses John. 

His lips are cold and when he opens his mouth his tongue is hot and long, far too long, and his teeth are like knives ripping holes in John’s flesh and his high tips over the edge into very bad indeed.

He shrieks. 

-|-

John wakes with a raging headache and pushes himself up to his elbows, blocking the light from the un-curtained window with one hand. He squints around the bare room and sighs, flopping back onto the mattress.

He immediately winces and curls up, careful not to move his head again. He feels like shite. 

He hears a soft step on the floor and peels his eyes open. 

Jim. Head cocked, toothbrush wedged into his mouth, looking down at John. His lips twist in a terrible smile around the handle of the brush and he says, “Hey.”

John buries his face in the pillow and smothers a laugh. 

-|-

“So,” John says, shrugging his jacket forward and over his shoulders. The wind is biting – they should have taken a cab, but John doesn’t have enough money, and Jim might, but hasn’t offered. “We’re going to see this friend of yours…why?”

“Well,” Jim says, leaning close and smiling. He doesn’t look cold at all. It’s amazing. “I haven’t seen Seb in so long, and really, he’s such a good friend.”

“Uh huh. So did I go to uni with him as well?” Perhaps he shouldn’t have spent so much time drinking in uni. Harry had disapproved so heartily, though, having spent her own time drinking and then having gotten over it. He hadn’t been able to resist invoking her disapproval. It did inhibit his memory, though. Slightly. He could have slept with this Seb, and probably wouldn’t remember. He scowls at the kerb. 

“Oh, _no_ ,” Jim croons, slipping an arm through John’s. “You’ve never met Seb, I’m sure of it. But you’ll like him.”

-|-

Seb turns out to be very tall. John cranes his head back and raises his eyebrows at this completely inappropriate misuse of the human genome. Really, no one _needs_ to be that tall. 

“So, Seb, what do you have for me?” Jims leans across the bar. The pub is currently empty, it being one in the afternoon, but Seb is apparently the bartender and comes in early. 

Seb shrugs, uncommunicative, but Jim doesn’t seem to mind. His head tilts slightly further to the side and Seb shifts, reaches down under the bar before drawing something up. John expects… well, he expects drugs, to be honest, or perhaps a manila envelope if he were to think of the cliché. 

Seb lays a small black object on the bar with a click and slides it towards Jim. John straightens, curious, and sees that it’s a flash drive. 

“Anything good?” Jim’s tone is low, insinuating. Seb’s gaze drifts to John. Jim’s hand snaps out and grasps Seb’s, fingers white and thin, and Seb flinches minutely. “Anything. Good.”

Seb nods, gaze cast down. John lifts his chin and gazes at Jim. 

“Good,” he purrs, and lets Seb go. “It’s nice to know you’re still peeking into my things, even though I _told you not to_. We’ll have to talk about that later.”

Jim turns, expression cold, and then bursts into a smile. “Let’s go, then, shall we?” He strides past John, who watches Seb for a moment longer as he reaches for a cloudy glass, then turns to follow. 

He runs to catch up with Jim and then strides alongside him. The flash drive has vanished. He wants to ask about it, but knows instinctively that that wouldn’t be a good idea. 

His head still aches from the night before. He spies a coffee shop across the street and reaches out, snagging Jim’s jacket and pulling him towards the road. 

Jim laughs wildly and they dart across the street. Jim reaches the door before him and grabs the handle, swinging it open. He pauses before John and bows halfway. “Coffee, then?”

John laughs, can’t help it or stop it from bursting from him, and he smiles wide at Jim’s bent figure, slim and limber. 

“Yes, sir,” he says. 

-|-

It’s only once they have their coffees and are huddled against the cold glass of the window, watching the few pedestrians and a flood of black taxis pour by, that John finds the courage to ask. 

“How… did you do that?” His voice comes out slightly strangled. 

“Do what?” Jim asks, lilting. John senses the danger. 

He swallows a searing gulp. “Well, that Seb. He’s very… tall. And yet he backed right down from you. How did you do that?”

John has never been good in fights. Harry has always been the fighter, from when they were little, and she’d wrestle John to the ground with her sheer force of will, forcing his face into the gravel until he squirmed and cried out. Even now, after all these years, that hasn’t changed. A level look is normally enough to make John back away, back down. 

It’s only when he’s drunk that he has the courage to put up a fight, and normally that sort of thing ends terribly for him anyway. 

He’s tense, waiting for Jim’s answer, waiting to see the timbre of his glance. Jim looks at him, then, the corners of his eyes creased with a smile, and John relaxes inside. He knows that this isn’t the kind of man he wants to make angry. He can feel it. 

“Well,” Jim purrs. “It isn’t anything _special_. Seb knows what kind of man I am, is all.” He lifts his coffee and takes a sip, lets his gaze drift to the window. John catches him watching him in the reflection. 

He puts on a smile. “And what kind of man are you?”

Jim doesn’t look back, just lifts his hand from his coffee and slides it across the table. His fingers wrap around one of John’s hands, not looking, and trace the lines on his palm. 

“The kind of man who knows,” he says, “that you consider yourself a failure. You slept with me last night. You didn’t know who I was, but you lay next to me on your shitty little mattress and got high with me, and slept with me. You obviously think very little of yourself.”

John flushes, angry and ashamed. Damn, he’d been so stupid, so obvious. Of course he was showing his insecurities on his sleeve. He he’d been showing his weaknesses like a sign for all the world to see, and this man would tear him apart with them. 

“Well,” he finds himself saying, “it doesn’t look like you think very much of _yourself_ , if you’d fuck someone as pathetic as me.”

Jim turns to him then, lowering his coffee and smiling, eyes and smile too wide. “Why, John,” he says, “you know me too well. And _so quickly_.” 

His clipped fingernails dig into the skin of John’s palm and he wants to draw back, but can’t. 

“And we never fucked, you know.”

He draws away, settling against the back of his chair and pulling his coffee close. He turns to look out the window, away from John completely, and after a moment pulls out his phone. He begins thumbing through the texts. 

John is breathless, _completely_ fascinated. 

-|-

When they get back to John’s flat, John is struggling with the stiff lock on the door when his neighbor across the hall leans out his own door. 

“Hi, yeah,” he says, and John turns to find Jim already watching the man. “You know you can’t leave your bags out in the hall like this, yeah? I mean, someone could fall, or something.” He seems awkward, wary of confrontation, and John draws breath to sigh. 

He never gets the chance to, however, as Jim immediately tenses and shoves away from the wall. He strides across the hall and the neighbor pales, backs away. John wonders what Jim’s face looks like. 

John reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, considers. Should he call someone? Is Jim about to do something that stupid?

Apparently, yes. The neighbor slips back inside just as Jim reaches the door and shoves. It opens slightly, but the neighbor is obviously pushing back from inside because it slams closed and the lock grinds. Jim braces himself against the door, but it doesn’t move. He leans down, then, close to the knob, and begins speaking. 

“I know your face,” he says, voice low and grinding. “I saw it, you piece of shit. You don’t get to tell me what to do. You don’t get to tell John what to do. You don’t speak. If I see you again, I will kill you. I will strip the skin from your bones and peel off your lips. I will nail them to the door as a warning and you will _never_ speak again.”

He stops and takes in a breath, holds it. John finds that he has stopped breathing. 

There is not a sound from inside that flat; has the man fled, or is he listening in petrified silence? John is quietly caught between terrified and thrilled. He’s had some real cunts for neighbors, so he knows where Jim’s urge to threaten had come from. It was just… a very thorough threat. 

Jim turns, straightens, and smiles at John. “That’s taken care of. Do you have the kettle set up yet?” He strides past John, pushes open the flat door, and disappears inside. 

John takes in a deep breath and slowly lets it go, his heart pounding. Then he bends to one of the boxes stacked by the door and pulls the top open. “Kettle’s still out here!” he calls. 

“Yes, I see!” Jim replies from the kitchen. 

John smiles. 

-|-

Jim curls up on John’s mattress, back pressed to John’s wall, with John’s computer and a mug of tea balanced in his lap. It looks entirely too precarious to John, and he doesn’t relish telling Harry how his computer got destroyed (again) and how he needs a new one _please_ , but something keeps him silent. So he sips at his tea and watches Jim bang away ungracefully at the keyboard. The black flash drive sticks out from the side of it.

After a few quiet moments, broken only by Jim’s off-key humming, he realizes something. “My computer has a password, you know.”

Jim raises his gaze to meet John’s briefly before it darts back down to the screen. He presses the page down button. “Does it? It was unlocked when I opened it. You should make sure you set that properly, next time,” he says casually, raising his mug and sipping. 

John opens his mouth to argue further, but the phone rings. He digs it out of his pocket, flips it open and presses it to his ear without looking, and winces. 

“John,” Harry says into his ear, voice low and intense. “I am a normal human being.” She pauses, and John narrows his eyes at the phone. 

“Yes…”

“As such,” she grinds, “I _do not_ threaten the neighbors with dismemberment!”

He sighs. “Harry, it really wasn’t –“

“You know, I talked to your neighbor to be helpful. I thought, maybe this guy can help John, maybe he can make John feel at home here. Myabe, _for once_ , John can have a healthy relationship. But no… you had to threaten him! I can’t believe you!”

“Hey,” John says, wounded by Harry’s tone of utter frustration. “I didn’t actually threaten him.”

“Oh, then who did? Your imaginary friend?”

John goes cold at the words and nearly ends the call then and there. His eyes narrow and he can see Harry’s snarl in his mind, the vicious twist of her lips. John is very much aware that his _irresponsible_ behavior has driven his friends away over the years. He does not need Harry to remind him of that.

“Oh _yes_ , Harry, without you around to watch me I’ve gone positively mad. It so happens that it was a friend of mine who threatened that neighbor, a very good friend who was looking out for me. Who is _real_ , thank you very much.”

“What’s his name, then?” Her tone is challenging and John’s jaw clenches. 

“None. Of your. Business.” He slams his phone down onto the floor next to him and shoves his tea away. He needs a drink. Should have had something in his coffee earlier, but he’d been too distracted to think of it. But he’s utterly irritated and feeling rather caged right now, so he definitely needs a drink.

He glances at Jim and snarls, “Well, what are you doing, then?”

Jim looks at him, reaching up and pulling the laptop closed. He sets his tea down carefully and rolls off the mattress. “Work,” he says. “So boring, so terribly dull and uninteresting.”

He walks over to John and leans down, hands clasped behind his back. His gaze is heavy on John, who stares up defiantly and tries not to shrink away. If only he could work up the courage to suggest going to that bar…

Jim’s lips purse. “Would you like to join me in my _work_ , then? I promise it will be exciting.”

John’s gaze narrows. _Better than a drink?_ he thinks. 

Jim seems to read his thoughts, because just then the corners of his eyes crease into a smile and he nods slightly. 

“Oh, yes,” John says, desperate, and reaches up. 

Jim pulls him to his feet. 

-|-

John’s anger at his sister is so consuming, so tightly wound in his stomach, that he doesn’t think to look where Jim is taking him until they are almost there. He blinks, stretches his neck, and leans close to the cab window. They are in London, that he can tell, but not much more. He glances at Jim, who is touching his iPhone with gentle fingers. 

The cab rolls to a stop. Jim flings the door open without looking and gets out. John slides across the seat but pauses, glancing at the cabbie. Jim leans back into the cab. “Coming?” 

John hurries to follow. 

So, Jim does not have to pay for cabs. Nor does he have to worry about threatening neighbors or paying for drinks. He has a strange power over John and is completely unfathomable. John smiles. It’s thrilling, knowing this man. 

John runs to catch Jim up and touches his elbow as he comes alongside. Jim glances up and raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“What are we doing, then?”

“Work,” Jim says, sounding unusually pleased by the fact. 

“Oh? What kind of work?” John asks, and Jim tilts his head back and laughs. 

“That would just be ruining the surprise, now wouldn’t it?” He slides his phone into his pocket and nods toward the plain building in front of them. “Inside we go. Towards adventure!” His smile is mischievous and contagious, and John smiles back. 

-|-

The man is tied to a metal chair, which is bolted to the floor. He strains against his bonds, skin alternately flushed and pale, and his light hair is darkening with sweat. John watches with wide eyes as the man pants. 

Jim smiles. 

“I see you won’t speak so easily. I would say that is a shame, but really, I enjoy it. Such a lair, me. Seb,” he calls, and a shadow across the room moves. “Show Mr Standage here the many reasons he should give up his… vow of silence.”

“Oh please,” Standage sneers. “I told you I don’t know anything, why do you keep –“

“Because I have been told, by a very reliable source,” Jim says, waving his phone briefly in from of him, “that you do know something. So I think that you’re lying to me. Seb.”

Seb steps close to Standage and punches him in the face. Standage’s head snaps back and he chokes. John sees a spurt of blood come from his nose. 

_Broken nose,_ his mind supplies. He may not have finished medical school, and may not have paid much attention when he was there, but he has a good memory for these kinds of things. They have always fascinated him. _That will impede his speech._

Standage gasps and spits. He turns a glare on Jim that makes John wince, but Jim’s smile only grows. 

“Yes… that’s better,” Jim purrs. “Now tell me. What can do you know about the Whitechapel code?”

Something flinches in Standage’s gaze, and John knows for sure he’s hiding something. He watches as Standage narrows his eyes and hisses, “Nothing.”

Seb raises his fist again and Standage flinches low in the chair, trying to hide with no place to go, and Jim says, “Wait.”

He turns to look at John. “I seem to recall you studying to be a doctor, yes?”

John hesitates, then nods. 

“Would you be so kind as to lend a hand? Seb is vigorous, but not the most knowledgeable in matters like this.”

John catches a glimpse of Seb’s shoulders tensing as he looms over Standage. Standage’s gaze rises to meet John’s and his eyes shine in the dim light. The sneering cast to his lip has vanished. The sight of his blood quickens John’s pulse. 

He looks back to Jim and nods. “Of course,” he says, tone falsely casual; he’s really so tense that he almost feels like he’s vibrating. 

“You _bastard_ ,” Standage hisses. “I don’t know anything, can’t you see that?” His tone vacillates between pleading and wheedling, and John despises it. He looks up to Seb and steels himself. 

“If you keep hitting him in the head,” he says, “you’ll only give him a concussion. He’ll be no use, then. There are other areas to injure that will cause the same amount of pain or more.” He pauses. Glances at Jim. “Do you need him after this?” he asks. 

Jim’s head tilts to the side and he hums for a long moment, tone rising and falling. “No,” he says lightly. His gaze fixes on Standage unerringly. 

John nods to himself and looks Standage over. “Try the fingers,” he says to Seb. “If they don’t work, we’ll move upwards.”

Seb looks at John for a long moment, a considering gleam in his eyes. Then the corners of his lips curl up into the barest hint of a smile and he raises his fist again. John steps around, behind Standage, and rests his hands on Standage’s shoulders. He can restrain the man, and will, if he must. But at the moment, he just lets the trembling sensation of Standage’s muscles play underneath his fingers. 

-|-

It’s nearly a miracle. 

John thinks of his drink a few moments later, as Standage screams and moans, secrets finally beginning to trickle out of him. John imagines that pint of golden beer he’d been craving, but doesn’t want it anymore; he can’t remember the last time he was able to resist a drink. He realizes in that moment, as he holds Standage’s head in place, that his hands aren’t trembling, and that they feel, instead, incredibly strong and steady. 

He catches Jim’s eyes across the room and breaks into a giddy smile.

-|-

When John checks his watch – wiping the blood from the casing first – it turns out that very little time has passed since they began. Standage is left groaning, voiceless on the floor, and when John steps outside he sees that the sun is setting, the sky just barely beginning to darken. The street is quiet. 

Seb steps out the door behind him and reaches into a pocket, pulling out a small napkin and using it to wipe his face. He tucks it away and strides down the street without a backward glance, the dark jacket and pants he shrugs close around him hiding the evidence of blood. 

Jim stands close to John, his warmth just brushing John’s elbow. John watches him from the corner of his eye. For once, he isn’t looking at his phone or shifting. He stares out across the street, expression unfathomable and seemingly lost in thought. 

John shifts his weight from one hip to the other and waits. 

“Do you know why Seb works for me?” Jim finally asks. 

John blinks and tears his gaze away from the shine of sunlight over rooftops and looks to Jim. “I…don’t.”

Jim turns a weary smile on him. “It’s because I saved his life. Or rather, I saved him from throwing his own life away. He was foolish and young once, and would have thrown all his talent away in a moment’s anger. I made sure he saved that anger, planned for a rainy day, and used it in the best way possible.”

He pauses, and John listens to the silence. 

“He owes me.”

Jim turns fully, reaching up to place a hand round the back of John’s neck. John feels the congealing blood on his skin shift and smear. 

“You, however…” His voice slides into silence, musing in tone. John frowns softly at him. 

“What about me?” he asks. _I’m nothing special_ , his mind adds in words that he just barely manages to bite back. 

“You’re _amazing_ ,” Jim says, and presses John back. 

John lets him, then starts as his back hits a wall he hadn’t been expecting. Jim’s hand curls around him neck, fingers brushing the soft skin behind his ears, and nails digging into his scalp. He presses close, body hard and taut against John’s. 

This is familiar to John. He knows they’d slept together the night before, or done something very like it. He knows that this has been done before. 

But in the growing twilight, with the air beginning to chill and soaked with the tang of blood, with the sound of gasps (both pained and ecstatic) ringing in John’s ears, it feels utterly new. Jim’s lips are chapped against his, and when John licks them, he tastes blood and sweat. He grasps Jim’s waist and pulls him close, uses the wall as leverage and presses into and away from it, wrapping himself around Jim. 

The kiss sends a spiral of heat flaring through John, coiling through his body and around his cock. It begins to stiffen; his eyes slide closed. 

Jim pulls away just far enough to lick across John’s cheek, following the line of his teeth under muscle and skin, leaving a stripe of wetness behind. John pants and tilts his chin upward. Jim reaches his ear and bites down on the lobe, hard. 

“Ah!” John cries, twisting in Jim’s grasp. 

Jim holds on, his teeth sharp but just shy of breaking the skin. John shudders and his eyes open; his gaze plays over the sharp outlines of the London eaves and he snakes his arms around Jim fully, feeling the muscles underneath his shirt. 

Jim’s teeth release his ear. “Thank you,” he hisses into John’s ear, and John can tell that he’s pleased. 

He smiles against Jim’s hair and presses his lips to it, nudging it out of place just slightly. Jim half whines and pulls away. “Let’s go back to the flat,” he says, and Jim takes his hand as he makes a quick phone call.

He doesn’t let go until the car lets them off in front of John’s building, and John is forced to dig around for his keys. 

-|-

The flat is just as dingy and terrible as John remembers it from this morning, scattered with bits of his dirty clothes and smelling like something left too long on the stove. But John feels different, stepping inside. 

More confidence, perhaps that’s what he feels. As he’d opened the door to the flat he’d glanced over his shoulder and spied the neighbor watching from behind his barely cracked door. John had smiled at him, pleased at the way the door snicked quickly shut, knowing that he was still bloody and conspicuous. 

It is thrilling. 

He locks the door behind him and Jim turns, silhouetted by the light flowing in from the streetlamp, unimpeded by curtains or blinds. He looks fey, and sated. 

His smile is full of sharp teeth and it makes John’s heart thud. 

John takes two steps across the room and Jim reaches out. The tip of his finger presses against a spot of dried blood on John’s cheek and it tugs. John draws back slightly, and Jim’s smile grows kinder. 

“Go,” he says. “Wash up. I’ll be _waiting_.” There is just a breath of his usually singing tone in his voice, and John rushes to obey. 

He bursts into the loo and sets the water running hot, stripping off his clothes while he waits. When the water is hot he grasps his shirt, no flannel to be found, and wets it, presses the hot dampness against his skin, trying to rid himself of some of Standage’s blood. He scowls at how difficult it is to remove. 

Eventually, though, the blood does come off, and John steps back from the mirror. He lets the shirt fall to the floor and walks out of the loo. He is wearing only his pants, and the air in the flat is cool. 

Jim has curled up on his terrible mattress, back pressed to the wall and hands resting palms up beside him. His head rolls as he watches John move across the room, and kneel on the edge of the mattress. Jim surges forward, then, lunging to his hands and knees but stopping just before he reaches John, breath rushing gently over John’s collarbones. 

John sighs and smiles, waits for Jim to close the distance. 

Jim tilts his head up to look at John and his eyes glint in the darkness. His lips twitch, then spread into a smile, so hungry and fierce that it sends shivers down John’s spine. John feels his cock harden in his pants, and he leans towards Jim, is drawn towards him. He looks down upon his lover and cannot believe that this is true, that he has found, or been found by, someone like this, someone who can make John _feel_ so very alive. 

His heart pounds with the heat of the moment, the realization that if life is a game at which he’s always had terrible luck, he’s finally winning. He would do, _will do_ anything to keep this feeling. 

He reaches out and runs his fingers through Jim’s hair. Jim smiles his sharp smile up at John. John lowers himself and kisses him. 

_This game_ , John realizes, _is only just beginning._


End file.
